Guest post by Clair Boone
This is part 2 of Clair’s series, In the Land of No Double Coupons. You can find Part 1 here.
2. Skip Junk Food
Research has proven that impulse buying increases your spending by about 20%. For me, that’s $40 per month of waste that could go towards bills or put into the savings account.
A major area where impulse buying occurs is junk food. Run into the grocery store hungry and you’re bound to grab a bag of chips to munch on in the car. While standing in line with fussy kids you cave into the pleas for candy and buy suckers.
Those items are only $1 each but if you impulsively put 10 such items in your cart, your bill just jumped $10.
One thing that’s helped us is to simply avoid junk food. Rarely do we have soda pop in the house and although we always have some snacks on hand, most of them are from ALDI where they’re very cheap.
As a mum, I’d rather give my child water or milk over soda pop any day of the week. Why wouldn’t I treat my body in the same way? Unless it’s a real treat (i.e. Dr. Pepper from a drive thru!) then I skip soda pop altogether.
3. Shop At ALDI
Once an unclean, unkempt place with more MSG and high fructose corn syrup than is healthy for any normal person, ALDI has come a long way! If you haven’t stepped into an ALDI recently, you need to.
- Planning a diet or just love eating healthy? ALDI has an inexpensive diet range named Fit n Active. With salad dressings galore, rice cakes, and great brown rice, there’s no need to spend more money on good food.
- I’ve tried ALDI diapers and they work! At only $5.99 a pack, it’s worth experimenting on them.
- You can’t find cheaper pie crusts, sugar or most other baking products anywhere else.
- At around $1 for a giant bag of chips or tortilla chips, there’s no need to pay more for snacks.
- ALDI has roses for $3.99 for six and bunches of flowers for about $2.99. If you’re rolling your eyes and thinking the quality lacks, then you’re just like me…until someone bought me some from a florist and at the same time Hubs came home with some from ALDI. No word of a lie the ALDI flowers outlasted the florist’s by a whole week!
Stay tuned for Part 3 tomorrow…
She bought diapers for 20 cents a pack prompting her friends to ask her to start www.mummydeals.org to teach others how to save money. She loves to use her couponing powers to buy things and donate them. Originally from England, Clair Boone is wife to an amazing man, Mum to a toddler and lives near Chicago.
Do you have an idea for a guest post? I am always looking for high-quality, original (i.e. not published anywhere else online) content with tips and ideas Money Saving Mom® readers can use. If you would like to submit a guest post, please follow the Guest Posting Guidelines.